"You shall go the instant she wakes; you shall stay with her as long as you like," Chase answered, drawing her down again, and putting his cheek against her head as it lay on his breast. "There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for your mother; you have only to choose. And for Dolly, too. You shall stay with them; or they can go with you; or anything you think best, my poor little girl." Ruth still trembled, and no tears came to her relief. Her cry, "And Genevieve _did?_" had struck him. "How they all hate her?" he thought. He had seen Genevieve since Mrs. Franklin's attack; he had gone over for a moment to tell her what had happened. Genevieve, when driven from L'Hommedieu, had taken refuge in her own room at the Cottage; here, behind her locked door, she had spent a long hour in examining herself searchingly, examining her whole married life. Her hands had trembled as she looked over her diaries, and as she turned the pages of her "Questions for the Conscience." But with all her efforts she could not discern any point where she had failed. Finally, at the end of the examination, she summed the matter up more calmly: "It _was_ best for Jared to be out of the navy; he was forming habits there that I understood better than his mother. And I _know_ that I am not avaricious. I know that I have always tried to do what was best for him, that I have tried to elevate him and help him in every way. I have worked hard--hard. I have never ceased to work. It is all a falsehood, or, rather, it is a delusion; for she is, she _must_ be, insane." Having reached this conclusion (with Genevieve conclusions were final), she put away her diaries and went down-stairs to tea. When Chase came in and told what had happened, she said, with the utmost pity, "I am _not_ surprised! When she comes out of it, I fear you will find, Horace, that her mind is affected. But surely it is natural. Mamma's mind--poor, dear mamma!--never was very strong; and, in this great grief which has overwhelmed us all, it has given way. We must make every allowance for her." She told him nothing of her terrible half-hour at L'Hommedieu. She never told any one. Silence was the only proper course--a pitying silence over Jay's poor mother, his crazed mother. Ruth had paid no heed to her husband's soothing words, his promise to do everything that he possibly could for her mother and Dolly. "What did Jared say? You were with him before he was ill. Tell me everything, everything!" He tried to satisfy her. Then he attempted to draw her thoughts in another direction. "How did you get here so soon, Ruthie? I told Hill to make you stop over and sleep."